![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
There's a negative review of A Tree of Bones which I quite like. It critiques the way Chess and his relationship with his mother change at the end of the series. Expect spoilers.
I don't think that the series takes an interesting, bad character and turns him into a boring, good one, but there is a certain charm to A Book of Tongues, a wanton grotesquerie, amoral and rude and indulgent, which is quite fun—but it, and Chess, stick in the mind because it's not simplistic, evil for the sake of evil or plot progression; Chess is emotionally motivated and complex. As the series progresses, he can't but mature. It makes the character more tempered, and the books as well—and while that's not the same thing as restrained, it is a bit less fun. But I appreciate it in the same way do any narrative that builds a complex antagonist.
I also appreciate the relationship between Chess and Ooona in A Tree of Bones. I believe it's important to portray abusive relationships as complex, and that abuse victims are entitled to complex feelings about their abusers, and that they have the right to feel forgiveness, or not feel forgiveness, or to feel both simultaneously. I also had a worried extra-narrative whisper in the back of my head: Chess isn't a real person, entitled to any feelings at all; is his forgiveness problematic on a larger scale, a faulty example of how to be a good abuse victim and a false example of the power of healing love?
I admire this review for calling that out; ultimately, Chess's forgiveness works for me because I don't see it as simplistically as that reviewer did, and I find his mixed reaction resonant. When I reread A Book of Tongues I talked about my formative mantra that loves is not enough; acknowledging that love still exists has been equally formative for me in these last few years. I am able to carry that contradiction within me: partial forgiveness, and shared love despite hurt. To see the same reflected in Chess validating and authentic.
It certainly continues to amaze me that I found this series so affecting.
I don't think that the series takes an interesting, bad character and turns him into a boring, good one, but there is a certain charm to A Book of Tongues, a wanton grotesquerie, amoral and rude and indulgent, which is quite fun—but it, and Chess, stick in the mind because it's not simplistic, evil for the sake of evil or plot progression; Chess is emotionally motivated and complex. As the series progresses, he can't but mature. It makes the character more tempered, and the books as well—and while that's not the same thing as restrained, it is a bit less fun. But I appreciate it in the same way do any narrative that builds a complex antagonist.
I also appreciate the relationship between Chess and Ooona in A Tree of Bones. I believe it's important to portray abusive relationships as complex, and that abuse victims are entitled to complex feelings about their abusers, and that they have the right to feel forgiveness, or not feel forgiveness, or to feel both simultaneously. I also had a worried extra-narrative whisper in the back of my head: Chess isn't a real person, entitled to any feelings at all; is his forgiveness problematic on a larger scale, a faulty example of how to be a good abuse victim and a false example of the power of healing love?
I admire this review for calling that out; ultimately, Chess's forgiveness works for me because I don't see it as simplistically as that reviewer did, and I find his mixed reaction resonant. When I reread A Book of Tongues I talked about my formative mantra that loves is not enough; acknowledging that love still exists has been equally formative for me in these last few years. I am able to carry that contradiction within me: partial forgiveness, and shared love despite hurt. To see the same reflected in Chess validating and authentic.
It certainly continues to amaze me that I found this series so affecting.
